Hart & Boot & Other Stories (26 page)

Franny grunted. “Could you go to the store and get some milk, since you’re up? The walk would do you good.”

I grumbled. “Nurse’s orders,” she said. “You don’t exercise enough.”

“Last time I try to help out somebody in the family. I could pay a regular nurse to leave me alone.”

“You wish.”

We Serum-producers, being so valuable to the medical community, have to be attended by a live-in nurse. The doc pays for it, and I pulled some strings to get Franny hired. It’s nice having a friendly face around, even if she does get weepy sometimes, thinking how I’m going to die.

I walked two blocks and stopped. When I’d passed by a few days ago, an empty lot bordered this street. Now a big black castle filled the space. The castle, only half-complete, resembled Montrose’s, from my outing. Workers on scaffolding mortared stones. “What the hell’s this?” I called.

“Some rich doctor’s new house!” a stonemason called back. “Ain’t it the damnedest thing?”

I went to the store, got the milk, and came back by a different route. First the quarterstaff shows up, and now the castle. Hallucinations? But other people saw this stuff, too. Unless I was hallucinating their reactions.

Time to take more Vision. I couldn’t handle the real world in large doses, especially when reality wasn’t behaving like it should.

***

—blade, spinning it from his hands. Griffonious growled and somersaulted toward me. I threw my staff, jumped over him, and did a handspring. I landed perfectly. As he stood, I snatched up my staff and struck him behind the knees, producing a nice crack, and he fell face-down.

The damsel lifted the hem of her dress and stepped on Griffonious’s head. She drove his face into the dirt, which suddenly turned to mud. Griffonious struggled and grunted, but she held him down, seemingly without effort, until he stopped moving.

Impressive. “Nice trick with the mud.”

“You’re not the only one with magic, Lachrymose.” She cocked her head. “I’ve always wondered, how did you get your name? You don’t strike me as the crying type.”

Before I could invent a suitably apocryphal answer, someone bellowed from the castle. A black-clad ninja stood on the ramparts. “Who dares attack my keep?” he shouted. His voice was muffled by his mask, but still seemed familiar. I couldn’t place it.

“Lachrymose the Rogue and, uh...” I looked to the damsel for her name, but she didn’t say anything, just put her hands on her hips and glared.

“We’ve come for the egg, Montrose,” she said.

He put his hands on his belly and laughed.
He’s pretty pudgy for a ninja
, I thought. “You’ll never have it! I’ve hidden it below my castle, in the Cellar of Icy Madness! You can’t possibly breach my gates!”

I glanced at Griffonious and wrinkled my nose. Were-apes rot fast. I’d forgotten that. “Maybe the ape has a key in his pocket,” I said hopefully.

“Not necessary,” she said. “We’ll fly.”

She touched my elbow and we rose from the ground, slowly at first, then faster. We rushed toward Montrose. He stumbled back. Only his shocked, wide eyes showed above his mask. He hadn’t expected such a direct approach.

I held on to my stick and tried not to get queasy. Most damsels don’t do much besides get kidnapped and look pretty. I preferred my damsel to the standard variety. She was the sort of woman I’d like to get involved with in the
real
world, if I wasn’t going to die in a year or three.

Thoughts of reality don’t belong in an outing, so I let them go. I put my foot on the rampart and leapt for Montrose. He escaped down a trapdoor before I could reach him.

My damsel led the way down, through dim rooms filled with hags and ghosts and, yes, ninjas. She dispelled the supernatural creatures with her spells and I dispatched the others with my staff. We reached the bottom floor and found Montrose standing before the entrance to the Cellar of Icy Madness. Frosty air blew from the recessed doorway. He cackled and drew down his mask.

Revealing Dr. Montressor. His image, anyway. I must’ve had a lot of repressed bitterness and suspicion for my subconscious to cast my doctor in this role. “Follow me, if you dare!” He ran down the cellar stairs.

I lifted my staff with a snarl and started for the frigid entrance. The damsel put her hand on my arm. “Wait,” she said, “before we go I want to—”

***

Franny again, with the anti-Vision. I sighed. “You know, once upon a time I could finish a thread and wake up between storylines. Not anymore.”

“Time for your appointment. You want me to walk with you?”

I didn’t look forward to going into the world, but I didn’t want Franny to worry. “No, it’s only a few blocks. I’ll be fine.”

I got to the office and sat in the waiting room. Brass lamps, bland landscapes on the wall, white carpet. All very tasteful and not at all homey. The nurse apologized for making me wait. “Dr. Monstressor’s with another patient.”

I twiddled my thumbs and read a fishing magazine. I heard Doc’s voice and looked up.

My damsel walked at his side. I recognized her instantly. She had frizzier hair than she did on the outings, and shadows bagged under her eyes. Even so, she looked good. She thanked the doctor and went toward the exit. She paused with her hand on the doorknob, frowning at me, then shook her head and went on.

I swallowed. “Hey, Doc,” I said. “Who was that?”

“Hmm? A new producer, just got diagnosed a few months ago. This was her third or fourth draining. She says she’s been hallucinating, and she was worried about the accelerated strain of Hammond’s disease, but she does Vision, so it’s probably just that.” He grunted. “Just that.’ As if that isn’t enough.”

I didn’t talk as he drained me. I thought about Vision, the collective unconscious, the Serum, and telepathy. I wondered if Doc was having a new house built, a big ostentatious Gothic folly, but I didn’t ask. I thought about all sorts of crazy shit, to be honest, but I couldn’t make it fit together.

When the doc put my blood bag in his metal refrigerator, I thought I saw a golden gleam on one of the shelves. But I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to ask about it.

***

“— kiss you. We’ve fought together this far, and I’ve come to care for you, rogue.”

“And I for you, damsel.” She was definitely the woman I’d seen at Doc’s office. Had I seen her before, and subconsciously cast her in this role? That seemed more likely than the possibility of us somehow Visioning
together
. This wasn’t a massively multiplayer RPG—this was the territory inside my mind. Besides, if she was the woman from the office, why hadn’t she recognized me?

As I thought about it, I realized that she couldn’t have recognized me. Lachrymose doesn’t look much like Larry, the
real
me. Lachrymose looks like the guy who played Robin Hood in the old movies, with a thin mustache and a twinkle in his eye. The real me is a normal brown-haired brown-eyed average-height sort. “Before you kiss me,” I said, “I must reveal my true face. I have traveled in disguise for years, but you deserve to see me as I am.”

I wanted to know if I’d lost my mind. I concentrated and changed my appearance to match the guy I saw in the mirror every few days, when I wasn’t out on Vision.

Her eyes widened. She opened her mouth, but no sounds emerged. It’s hard to talk about reality from inside an outing, almost impossible, but she recognized me.

That, or my subconscious created the illusion that this Vision-construct recognized me. Multilevel mental breakdown and nested hallucinations can be pretty confusing.

Before she spoke, a dozen ninjas burst literally from the walls, bricks and mortar exploding outward as they came. They screeched and whirled various nasty weapons. I grabbed the damsel’s hand and we raced down the cellar stairs. The door slammed shut behind us, cutting off the ninja pursuit.

Those ninjas came at a convenient time
, I thought. My subconscious must have been trying to protect me from an awkward moment. I glanced at the damsel.
Or maybe her subconscious was protecting her
.

The Cellar of Icy Madness was cold, the kind of cold that makes the outer layer of your skin feel like chapped leather. We shivered and hurried down the stairs. “So this egg,” I said, “is there enough for two?”

“Would you share immortality with me?”

“I wouldn’t turn it down.”

“I don’t know exactly how it works. The tales vary. Some believe it is the rare Phoenix egg, and can be used only once. Others say it can be used to decant the elixir vitae, the elixir of eternal life. I suspect it can be used only once, and I don’t think Montrose has used it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“If he were immortal, why would he flee and send his minions after us?”

I wanted to say, “Because this is an outing, a Vision-trip, and it’s more exciting that way.” Instead I said, “You’re right. But why wouldn’t he use it?”

“Another legend says the golden egg can only be used by one with a love-filled heart. Montrose’s heart is cold. The egg would poison him.”

“Right you are.” Montrose stood at the bottom of the stairs. We’d reached the lowest level of the Cellar of Icy Madness. He held the golden egg, a gleaming ellipsoid bigger than a baseball, in one hand. “But if I cannot have immortality, no one will!” He lifted the egg high overhead, as if to dash it to the floor.

“No!” the damsel and I shouted, and Montrose flung the egg—

***

“Already?” I shivered.

“Yeah.” Franny put down the needle.

“How long was I out?”

“A week. That must’ve been some super-strong Vision.”

I rubbed my forehead. The golden egg, immortality, flung to the Cellar’s floor—I couldn’t stand to think about it.

I went to the doc’s office for the blood-drain. I sneaked glances at his specimen refrigerator the whole time. When he put away the blood bag, I distinctly saw gold inside. “I’m out of anti-Vision, Doc. Want to give me some, take it out of my payment?”

He made a face. “Sure.” He left the room.

I opened his refrigerator. Icy wind blew into my face. There it was, the golden egg, nestled among beakers and racks of test tubes.
It can’t be real
, I thought.
I’m hallucinating
. I picked up the egg, and found it fragile and lighter than I’d expected. I slipped it into my jacket pocket. Doc probably wouldn’t notice the bulge. He might not even know about the egg. He wasn’t really the ninja king—just a guy making a living on my death.

The doc didn’t suspect anything. I took the anti-Vision and the money and left.

When I got home, Franny said, “Going under again? Or I could make a meatloaf, if you want some real food.”

“I’d like that.” I put the golden egg in the refrigerator, in the vegetable drawer under some broccoli.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I think I’m going to lay off the Vision for a while.”

After dinner I stood in the living room and twirled my staff. I dropped it a lot, but I had fun. I went to bed, to ordinary sleep, for the first time in ages. I had dreams, not Visions. Montrose was there, and the damsel, and Franny, and the were-ape, and a cast of thousands. I dreamed of golden fruit, a rising Phoenix, and men in star-patterned robes boiling lion’s blood in beakers.

I woke early and went to the kitchen. I poured a glass of milk. Franny sat reading the paper at the table. She looked irritated at my intrusion. She usually had the run of the house, aside from emptying my piss-bag. She’d have to get used to me staying awake. I didn’t want to go on another outing anytime soon, not if it meant seeing the egg smashed and Montrose triumphant. Could the damsel, if she was really the woman I’d seen in Doc’s office, go to the Cellar of Icy Madness without me? I hoped not. I hoped the egg survived, whole, in both worlds.

Someone knocked on the door. I answered before Franny could.

The damsel stood in the hallway. She wore yellow stretchpants, and I couldn’t look at her enough. “You don’t know me,” she said. “I got your name and address from Dr.—”

“Franny!” I shouted, startling the damsel and my sister both. I made a shooing motion toward the door. “Out, Franny, out, take a walk, go, go, go.”

“Larry, what are you—” She saw the damsel and lifted an eyebrow. “Hey there.”

“Go!”

She took her purse and kissed me on the cheek. “Be good, brother,” she said, and slipped out.

“I’ve got the egg,” I said when the damsel came in.

She leaned against the kitchen counter as if she couldn’t support her own weight. “It’s real?”

“I hope so. If you can see it, too, then I’ll believe it.”

I took down a frying pan and turned on the stove. My hands were shaking

“Wait.” She stepped toward me. “We never had a chance to kiss. The ninjas came.”

“I remember.” I put my arms around her, not too awkwardly. Her breath didn’t smell of roses, but it was nice. After the kiss broke I said, “This is really stupid. We’ve both got Hammond’s. I don’t have much longer to live. You’re younger, but...”